Mohammad Javed, an accused in the 2022 tailor Kanhaiya Lal murder case of Rajasthan's Udaipur, was on Thursday granted bail by the High Court on a bond of Rs 2 lakh and surety of Rs 1 lakh each.
Mohammad Javed is accused of doing recce in the case, in which a tailor was murdered by two men who slit the throat of the victim and later posted a video on social media where they claimed that they are avenging an insult to Islam, indirectly referring to the remarks against Prophet made by former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Nupur Sharma.
The incident that took place on June 28, 2022, triggered communal tensions across the state with locals protesting against the killing and stray incidents of violence seen, prompting the Rajasthan government to suspend internet services and impose Section 144 of the CrPC in the state for a month.
The Nupur Sharma Connect
Kanhaiya Lal was killed for allegedly sharing a social media post in support of the then BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma, whose comments led to a massive controversy and backlash, even from other countries.
The assailants entered Lal's store posing as customers before killing him. Videos of the murder were posted on the internet, showing the two alleged assailants holding butcher knives and claiming responsibility for the murder, identifying themselves as Muhammad Riyaz Attari and Muhammad Ghaus.
Nupur Sharma made remarks about the Islamic prophet Muhammad in reply to remarks on the Hindu god Shiva during a debate in a TV news channel on the Gyanvapi mosque dispute. Sharma's comment was in reference to an account from Sahih al-Bukhari that Muhammad (aged 53) married Aisha when she was six-years old, and the marriage was consummated when Aisha was nine.
The controversy escalated on June 1, when Naveen Kumar Jindal, the Delhi BJP media chief, made similar remarks on Twitter. By June 4, the remarks had been widely shared on social media, and were trending among the top 10 hashtags in all the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and Turkey.
As several Gulf countries, including allies and partners of India, issued strong condemnations and threats of boycotting Indian goods, the BJP-led government of India responded to the controversy by distancing from the remarks, saying that they came from "fringe elements". BJP later suspended Sharma and expelled Jindal from the party.
Mohammad Javed's Arrest
Mohammad Javed, 19 back then, was arrested in July 2022 for allegedly played an "important role" in the conspiracy to kill the tailor in Rajasthan's Udaipur, a National Investigation Agency (NIA) official had said.
Mohammad Javed, a resident of Sindhi Sarkar Ki Haweli, Kheradiwala, was the eighth accused arrested in connection with the killing of Kanhaiya Lal by two assailants armed with sharp-edged weapons at his shop in Udaipur's Maldas street, a spokesperson of the NIA had said.
"Mohammad Javed "played an important role in the conspiracy to kill Kanhaiya Lal by conducting reconnaissance and passing on the information about the victim's presence at the shop to the main killer, Riyaz, prior to the attack," the NIA official said.
